February Currently & Five for Friday (on Sunday)

I am linking up with Farley from Oh' Boy 4th Grade for the amazing February Currently.  I just love reading everyone's currently.  Don't you?

Listening: I am catching up on all my favorite TV shows from when I was on vacation.  I am watching Bones right now.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE murder mystery shows.  CSI, Bones, Criminal Minds....I love them all.

Loving: I went to Nara Park yesterday near Osaka, Japan where deer live in this park.  It was amazing. Check out the pictures below.

Wanting:  The food in Thailand was absolutely amazing.  Korean food does not even compare.  Not even close.  I ate Khao Soi and mango and sticky rice whenever I could, and it was magnificent.  I must learn how to make it.

Needing: I only took 2,000 pictures on my trips to Thailand and Japan.  Yes, I have a problem with taking pictures.  That's a lot of pictures to edit.

2 Truths and a Fib:  Hmmm....can you figure out which one is the fib?
~1. I did work at Chuck E Cheese in high school, and I did everything there except make the pizza.  That included dressing up as Chuck E.  One time, kids saw my long blond ponytail up in the head and figured out that I was a girl.  It was exactly that time when Chuck E had to go take a nap.
~2. I do not love chocolate.  I know.  I'm weird.  I like chocolate OK (chocolate cake, brownies, chocolate chip cookies), but anything like Death By Chocolate is way too much chocolate for me.  One tiny piece of fudge will last me enough for an entire year.
~3. I did go sky-diving in Christchurch, New Zealand, and I totally want to go again when I get down to my goal weight.  It's an amazing feeling.  Absolutely amazing.

So now onto Five for Friday....I know I totally missed the Five for Friday on Friday, but I just back from a long weekend trip to Japan.  So please forgive me that I'm doing it on Sunday!

Go check out what everyone did this week on Doodle Bugs Teaching!

 What did I do this week?

On Sunday, I arrived back in Korea after vacationing in Thailand for 2 weeks.  It was wonderful.  Amazing.  Awesome.  So good that I did not want to come home.

And we were staying right in the middle of one of the big protests.  It was so amazing to be there at a big point in Thailand's history.

Other than the protests, my absolute favorite part of my trip to Thailand was visiting the Elephant Nature Park, where they rescue elephants and care for them, not hurting them or harming them in any way.  All the other ones in Thailand hit them or use harmful tactics to get them to do what they want.  I learned that riding in a basket on their backs can break their back.  One of the elephants there has a broken back exactly from that.  Another one is blind in both eyes because her handler shot both of her eyes with a slingshot after she refused to work when her baby, still in the placenta sack, rolled down the logging mountain and died.  What an amazing place.

I didn't realize this but something bit me on my back while I was in Thailand.  On Tuesday, this bite really started hurting so I went to the doctor and got anti-inflammatory medicine and antibiotics.  Well, this bite got worse and worse until it was one big knot.  It even hurt to lean back on pillows (it was right in the middle of my back).  Sorry, I can't include a picture but I couldn't contortion my body enough to take a picture.  It is finally getting better after um expelling itself.  Gross, I know.

Thursday and Friday were holidays for me (Lunar New Year), so I decided to take a long holiday weekend in Japan.  I flew into Osaka (less than 2 hours away) and went to Kyoto for two nights.  One of the places I went to in Kyoto was Nijo Castle.

On Saturday, I took a train from Kyoto to Osaka and met up with a friend who lives in Tokyo and speaks fluent Japanese, which was SO nice.

Jason, my friend, asked me if I wanted to do a city tour or a little bit different country tour.  I decided for the little bit different, and boy, am I glad I did.  If you know anything about me, you know that I LOVE animals.  Jason took me to Nara Park, about an hour outside of Osaka, where deer live freely among the temples and shrines.  It was THE absolute best part of my trip to Japan.  The BEST.

The deer just come right up to you....especially if you have food!  You can buy these wafers to feed the deer, and they know when you have them!

The temple has a very large Buddha.

I just love looking at my pictures of the deer.  I remember them coming up to me so I could pet them.

This week, I hit a milestone on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I have now made $1,000, and that really does excite me since I just started selling products in early October.  Woo-hoo!  Check out my store!
I just wish I knew what grade and subjects I would be teaching next year, so I could start making games, activities, and lessons.  I never know which direction God will take me.

Five for Friday time!

TGIF!!  It's Friday, so it's time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the weekly Five for Friday.

Can I get a big woo-hoo?  WOO-HOO!!!!

Here are my five random things from this week:

So who knows what song this is?

If you guessed "As Long As You Love Me" by the Backstreet Boys, you are the winner!

My co-teacher for my 5th and 6th grade winter camp class wanted to teach the students this song.  She asked me if I knew it.  Hah!  I started singing it to her and then whipped out my iPod and started playing the song.  Gotta love the Backstreet Boys.  We had fun singing and teaching the kids this song.  I don't think they liked it near as much as we did.

One day this week my co-teacher surprised me and asked me to go with her and her winter camp class to a little coffee shop.  It was actually a coffee shop that is run by intellectually disabled students from the school next to ours.  Pretty cool, huh?  The kids loved it.

One of our goals in English class is to get our students to practice speaking.  On the whole, Koreans don't think they speak English well, even if they do.  So they are not likely to answer a question if you ask the whole class.  So I brought in a game.  I had been using Hot Potato with my elementary classes and thought I would use the same game with my older class.  (The boy in orange is the son of one of the teachers at my school, and he sent him to school this week to practice his English.  He was wonderful!)

So what I did is this...I brought my iPod and little speaker from home and put on my "Workout" playlist.  I played the music, and we passed the "hot potato" from person to person.  When the music stopped (by me pressing the pause button), the person holding the "hot potato" would have to pick a tongue twister from the box and read it.  We had learned tongue twisters the day before.  They.  Loved.  It.  And it totally surprised my co-teacher.  We all laughed and had such a good time.  Playing Hot Potato has been been one of the best experiences at my school.  Who would have known?

On Wednesday morning, we took the elementary kiddos on a field trip to O World to go sledding.  Down an artificial snow hill.  Actually, it was tubing....aka putting your booty into a tiny inner tube.  And what do you know?  It started snowing before we left.  Cool!

This place was so cool.  It's an amusement park and zoo.  I would love to come back in the spring.

We had to walk through the park to get to the snow hill.  We each had a student buddy who is blind.

 These "stairs" were somewhat difficult for the blind students.  They weren't even at all.  And you had to step over this awkward rubber.  Then you got your inner tube and drug it up the hill.

 It was SO MUCH FUN!  I went up and down the hill 9 times.  I felt like a little kid.

The last random thing of the week is a doozy.  The principals took all the winter camp teachers out to dinner today after school.

This was our appetizer.  Silk worm larvae.  Yes.  You read that right.  And it smells JUST as bad as you think it does.  It's awful.  Simply awful.

Sorry for the pic.  I just had my phone.

Then for the main dish...we had a spicy array of sea creatures: octopus, shrimp, crab, mussels, squid...all mixed with bean sprouts.

And here is a little baby octopus.  He says "hi".

Makes you want to move to Korea, right?

Seriously though...as I was sitting on the floor in the restaurant, I thought about what an incredible experience I'm having over here.  Crazy and sometimes strange but incredible.

Five for Friday

It is Friday which means tomorrow is Saturday.  Can I get a woo-hoo?  I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today!  This is my first Five for Friday, and I am super duper excited.  It's the little things that make me happy.

Let's get it started!

On Tuesday, my co-teacher made some homemade bubbles for the kids, and they loved it.  She used dishwashing soap to make the bubble mixture and straws for the wands.  Several of the students are blind, and they enjoyed feeling the bubbles land on them.  It took me a while to get the hang of not getting the dishwashing soup in my mouth.

Tuesday afternoon (New Year's Eve), the high school students invited me to come to their little New Year's Eve celebration.  They ordered pizza and fried chicken (a popular combination here in Korea).  The pizza was um...different.  I call it "the everything but the kitchen sink pizza".  It had corn (pretty much on all pizza here in Korea), green peppers, chicken, sweet potatoes, pineapple, and mushy sweet potato mash.  I finished the whole slice, and my co-teacher was encouraging me to get another piece.  Um, I'm full.

I've got a kicker for you.  Check out the shirt that one of my 6th grade girls was wearing at school this week.  Now I realize that the students are either visually impaired or blind, but still.  Schools in Korea all have uniforms with each school having a different uniform, but my school does not.  And this is what you get.  At least it's correct English and not Konglish.

On New Years Day, my friend, Amanda, and I went to Old Downtown to walk around and shop.  This is my favorite place in Daejeon.  We passed by Animal Row, and man this place makes me sad.  Korea doesn't know what to do with dogs.  They are either little babies who are dressed up and carried or sadly killed for food.  Pet stores are abundant here, and they have THE cutest little puppies.  However, sadly, most of them are sick since they come from puppy mills.  And many of the puppies don't even look old enough to be away from their mamas.  I'm a HUGE animal lover and animal advocate...having dogs and volunteering at the animal shelter back home.  It just breaks my heart not to be able to help them.

I got TWO packages this week!  Now, if you have ever lived abroad...especially in a country where your comforts from home are not available, then you understand just how big getting packages can be.  It's like Christmas all over again.  My first package was from my aunt and uncle.  I got a beautiful scarf and this awesome Texas A&M ornament for my Christmas tree, which by the way is still up.  It makes my apartment feel more like home, so who knows how long I will leave it up.  There's no limit, right?  And do I get a break for living in Korea?

My second package was from my best friend, Kim.  She knows me well because she sent Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Pop Tarts.  Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is one of my favorites.  Seriously.  I grew up on it, and it makes me happy.  And Pop Tarts?  You cannot get Pop Tarts in Korea.  You can't get a lot of stuff in Korea.  I also got some lotion, a Texas A&M scarf (can you tell I'm a little proud of my college), and some awesome books.  Can't wait to read them!  I miss going to bookstores.  :(  I am a a bookaholic, that's for sure.

One last picture...I was walking home from school the other day and saw this gorgeous sunset behind the mountains.  Now, it was taken with my phone, so it's not the best picture, but I think you can still see just how pretty it was.

Happy Friday y'all!  I'm going to fix myself a yummy dessert of fried bananas.